A day to relax in Lhasa

After two days of touring, it was time for a kickback day. We walked around the Barkhor (“lookee, lookee, cheap cheap and “I love you”). We stopped at the ex- Holiday Inn for a taste of what the upper crust traveler was experiencing and found a rather depressing, run-down building filled with Caucasians.
We grabbed a beer at the Dunya Restaurant and spent some time talking to Fred, the Dutch owner. This was his first season with the restaurant and it looks like he’ll make it. He’s offering the right things to attract the non-back-packer crowd- cold beer, good food and English speaking staff. He was an ex- tour guide who gave it up and decided to try the restaurant business. He told us stories of the 40 offices he needed to visit to get his green card, the 3 blood tests and the constant battles with the Chinese government. (Rules are changed arbitrarily)
The good news- we were able to confirm a trip to Ganden Monastery with a great English-speaking guide. After our group experience, with two guides- one to count heads and wave a flag and the other who was able to point to things with insightful commentary such as, “Past Buddha”, “Future Buddha”, “Butter candles”, we decided that we needed to get someone with a grasp of English and Tibetan history.

Touring Lhasa

Another full day of touring. We seemed to be doing OK with the altitude acclimation-until we hit our first stop, Drepung Monastery. No one told us that it was a huge walk up-hill to get to the main monastery, and most of our group was winded and exhausted at the top. We’d noticed that the group diminished daily- people either with altitude sickness or with the “Chinese” cold. With all the pollution and spitting in China, it seems inevitable that you will get a cold and cough at some point.

Drepung was once the world’s largest monastery with over 10,000 monks. It was founded in 1416 and prior to the construction of the Potala, it was the residence of the Dalai Lamas and headquarters of the Tibetan government. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th Dalai Lamas are all entombed at Drepung.

The monasteries in Tibet operated like an assembly of colleges, each with its own interests and administration. The colleges (tratsang) were then made up of residences (kahgtsang). Each monk was assigned a residence based on the region he was born in.
After lunch, it was on to Sera Monastery, the second of the Gelugpa Monasteries. It once had a population of over 5000 monks and now has only a few hundred.

We arrived to see a lot of construction work, with roof workers singing in unison. John got blessed by one of the monks.

We ended our tour at the Norbulingka, the Summer Palace of the Dali Lama, founded in 1755 by the 7th Dalai Lama. Each subsequent Dalai Lama built onto the grounds, adding lakes and palaces. It was at the Norbulingka that the 14th Dalai Lama made his escape to India in 1959 disguised as a Tibetan soldier.

We departed early from the group and headed back for a dinner at the Tibet Lhasa restaurant- great Nepalese/Indian food.

The day in Lhasa

During the night, John’s fever came back, but he decided to chance our day tour. Our first stop was the Potala Palace.

Once the home of the Dali Lama, today it feels more like a museum and a reminder that the Dali Lama has had to move his base to India. We were fortunate to be able to start at the northern end and work our way downward vs. making the huge climb to the top.

Of the 1000 rooms in the Palace, only about 20 are open to the public. During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards destroyed most of the relics from the palace. We had an interesting chat with one of the monks who warned us about speaking too openly with the locals. Evidently, there were underground police everywhere- even in the ranks of the monks.
After a rest for lunch, we headed to the Jokhang Temple, the most revered religious structure in Tibet.

It was founded sometime between 637 and 647, built by King Songtsen Gampo to house a Buddha image brought to Tibet as part of the dowry of his Nepalese wife, Princess Bhrikuti. At the same time, his Chinese wife, Princess Wencheng brought another Buddha image, Jowo Sakyamuni, to Tibet as part of her dowry. After the death of the King, the Princess Wencheng brought the Buddha to Jokhang for protection.

The Tibetans believe that Princess Wencheng chose the site for the Jokhang and discovered the presence of a demoness. She established, through geomantic calculations, that the heart of the demoness lay beneath a lake in the center of Lhasa. She felt that the demoness needed to be tamed before Buddhism could be embraced by the Tibetans. So, she set about draining the lake (the life-blood of the demoness) and built a central temple that would be placed on the heart. Since it was a very powerful demoness, a mere stake through the heart was not enough, so she had a series of temples built in 3 concentric rings to pin down the extremities of the demoness.
The Jokhang today is a very active temple, crowded with pilgrims. The main assembly hall (dukhang) was lined with a long row of glowing butter candles.

The most important shrine in Tibet is the Chapel of Jowo Sakyamuni, which houses the image of Sakyamuni (Present Buddha) at the age of 12.
After seeing so many movies about Lhasa and the Dali Lama, it was a bit like living on the set of “Seven Years in Tibet”.
The street scene around the Jokhang, called the Barkhor, was wild. Pilgrims were everywhere, following the circuit around the Jokhang.

The most amazing part of the city was to find everyone with a ready smile amidst all the poverty. We took a walk around town and found a great restaurant, Dutch owned and managed, next to the Yak Hotel. Cold beers and an English-speaking bartender.

Lhasa

It was time to head to Tibet, so we got a start at 4:30 am to transfer to the airport with our “group”. The Chinese have made travelling to Tibet very difficult for the independent traveler, so agencies have gotten around the rule by setting up “group tours” which basically put together a fake group of travelers, get a group permit and set up airport transfer and lodging.
The process was uneventful, arriving at the Chengdu airport and almost immediately getting on to our packed 737 headed to Lhasa. The mix of people was interesting- a lot of Tibetans, some Caucasians and lots of Japanese.
Once we arrived at the Lhasa airport, we got onto a local bus for the 1 ½ hour trip into the city. Our group filled most of the bus, but it waited until every seat was filled with locals before taking off.

We saw our first yak boat and started to get a sense of the altitude. Just dragging your bags from the airport to the bus left you with your heart pounding.
The city of Lhasa was uninspiring. The Chinese have started to build huge concrete structures around the old center city and the roads are well paved and everything is white concrete with blue glass windows. Our hotel, the Snowlands, was in the center of the old section. We got our room and decided that rest was the best option for the day. All advice from other travelers suggested that at least 1-2 days of rest would help with acclimation.
We had a great dinner at the Snowlands restaurant and headed to bed.

Chengdu

A miserable night with barely working A/C. We had their engineer trying to convince us that it was working. We headed out with our taxi driver for our day tour. He took us to Dujiangyan irrigation project about 60 km NW of the city. The project was undertaken in the 3rd C. B.C. by an engineer, Li Bing, to divert the Min River into irrigation canals. It was a brilliant project, made even more amazing by the date it was accomplished.

The park surrounding the dam project was beautifully done. Inside was the Fulong Temple, erected in 168 AD and supposedly a cable car to take you to the Two Kings Temple. We walked- and walked – and walked and finally determined that the cable car was defunct. We did provide a fair amount of amusement for the local Chinese tourists who obviously hadn’t seen too many Caucasians (and probably found our dripping, sweaty bodies fairly amusing.) We’ve decided that Asians don’t sweat. We’re not sure why- John claims that it’s the rice diet absorbing all the sweat.
After Dujiangyan, we drove back to Chengdu and Liao took us to a Sichuan restaurant, the Shu Geng Yuan. The food was spectacular. It was truly the best Chinese food we’d ever had- and spicy hot. And, as the brochure says, “Welcome a honoured guest. Let’s get happiness, please”.
John was developing a fever and so we decided to cut our touring a bit short. We took a short trip to the local antiques market- what a find. Stall after stall of our kind of “stuff”.

Then we made an executive decision to move to the Traffic Hotel- with real A/C and we dropped John off and got him situated for a rest while I went back to the Chengdu, checked out and made a stop for some Chinese medicine to “get the hot out”.

Chongqing to Chengdu

A Western breakfast and we were off to the bus station. We had the hotels’ driver get us to the station and help us buy our tickets. It was a good thing- there were no signs in English and no one spoke any English.

We got on the bus and headed to Chengdu. It was a 4-hour ride- and quite an experience. Chinese buses, while fairly modern on long distance runs, have a driver and “stewardess” and play non-stop kung-fu movies at full blast the entire drive. Add to the noise pollution of the movies, we had a driver who must have had a major problem with depth perception, because he blew his horn every time he passed someone (which was frequently). (There are two horns on the bus- the quiet one for city streets and the blast your ears off one for the road.) About 3 hours into the ride and our stewardess was completely out in the seat next to us- they do have an amazing sleep gene. The Chinese (and Asians in general) can sleep anywhere and in any position. Meanwhile, we were watching our drivers’ eyelids closing, then see him shake his arms and hit his head to keep himself awake. We were thrilled when he took out a cigarette hoping that the smoking would help him stay awake. There were several times when John almost headed to the drivers seat to take over. Looking back, it was pretty amusing to see this guy constantly banging himself on the head to stay awake…but living through it was another thing.

We finally got to Chengdu and were dropped off at a bus station well outside of town. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the Holiday Inn. We wanted to check our options just in case our 3rd star Chengdu Hotel was as wonderful as our last hotel. The prices at the Holiday Inn (HI) were a bit steep- about $100 per night, so we headed to the Chengdu. Once again, the lobby was beautiful- with the same dingy ex-Communist feeling in the halls and rooms. While they claimed the A/C worked, it was questionable, but we decided we’d save the money and live with it.
We headed to the Traffic Hotel to try to get a handle on traveling to Tibet. The Traffic Hotel was a backpacker’s paradise. Multiple travel agencies lined the parking lot of the hotel. Inside, they had ice cold drinks, a currency exchange, Internet room, luggage storage, restaurant, IDD telephone service….everything you need to survive. We checked the room rates- 200 yuan (about $25 with breakfast)- and with working A/C units. We were sorely tempted, but decided to give the Chengdu a try. We got things in the works for our trip to Tibet and headed back to the HI. The taxi driver spoke excellent English, so we asked if he’d be willing to do a day tour of the city- what a lucky break.
The Holiday Inn was wonderful. We had a rooftop view of the city with ice-cold Dragon Seal wine and great food.

Chongqing

On our own again. We headed off the boat in Chongqing, got our luggage into a taxi and headed for the Chongqing Hotel. Hu at CITS had told us that the Chinese 3 star hotels were better than US 4 star hotels. Well, the lobbies are beautiful- completely remodeled with air conditioning that stuns you when you walk in off the street. Then you get to the rooms. You walked through dingy hallways with stained carpeting and very little lighting to get to your tiny box with worn furniture, stained carpets and A/C that barely worked. We immediately asked for the next step up in rooms and got to a larger, brighter room (still badly stained carpeting- rust and blood).
We headed out to explore the city and walked to the center. Chongqing was amazing. Everywhere you looked there were new construction projects going up- huge skyscrapers and major developments of office complexes, hotels and housing. It is a major supplier of rice, grain, cotton, silk, coal, iron and natural gas. It’s called the Shanghai of the west- and sometimes compared to Hong Kong. As the 3 Gorges project progresses, it’s expected that it will be a major powerhouse in manufacturing and trade.
The driving style was wild- like Wuhan, a game of dodge-em for cars, bicycles and pedestrians (in that order) and chicken. We found the Harborside Hotel- a brand new 5 star hotel and sat down to watch the scene outside on the pedestrian mall. The contrasts were stark- the name brand stores selling everything under the sun, huge video monitors flashing more advertising to encourage more buying- then the old men carrying boxes of DVD players on poles straddled between their shoulders.
We explored some more of the city, darting between air-conditioned shops and discovered the Marriott Hotel- another brand new 5 star hotel. The depressing thing about these new 5 star hotels was the price- about $65 – while in our 3 star dump, we were paying $55. When we got back to our room for a siesta, we woke up to a non-working A/C and we were sweating. That was enough for us, we checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the Harborside and checked into our beautiful room with CNN and working A/C.

We stopped for dinner at the rooftop restaurant in the Marriott- only to find that their A/C wasn’t working- (While this may seem like a trivial issue, Chongqing is known as one of the three “furnaces” of China- the heat was unbearable. The other two cities are Nanjing and Wuhan) so we found a local Chinese hotel with a revolving restaurant and had a few warm beers and tried to find something on the menu that was edible. We finally walked out and got room service- great tomato soup and CNN.

Yangtze River Cruise Day 4

Our last day of cruising. We left at 9:00 for our shore excursion to Fengdu, the “city of ghosts”. The weather was so hot and humid that even walking to the bus left everyone sweating. Rather than trek the 600 steps to the top of the hill, we took a chair lift and our guide hurried us through the sites.

At the top is a temple to the God of the Underworld, Yinwang and is supposedly the final place of judgment. Before reaching the temple, you have to perform 3 feats- cross a bridge in three steps, run up a flight of a hundred stairs in a single breath and balance for 3 seconds on a round rock.

If you fail, hell will claim you and your destination in the underworld will be dire. The site is a mix of Chinese theme park, Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian temples and the final temple of Yinwang. The unbelievable thing about it was that it was active- people were making offerings and prayers in these temples.
After our exciting excursion, we had lunch, a quick tour of the engine room and had a lecture on the Three Gorges Dam project.

A few additional facts; one of the main reasons for the dam is flood control. 60% of the flooding comes from the upper Yangtze, 20% from Lake Datong and 20% from The Han River in Wuhan- so about 60% of the flooding will be controllable as a result of the dam. The other reasons include electrical power and transfer of water to the Yellow River from the stream of Xiang Xi in the town of Zigui. The new dam will form a lake from Chongqing to Yichang. Part of the relocation of the people will be to Xinjiang Province.

We had a champagne “Captain’s Dinner” and ended up at the boring family’s table. He was a doctor for Kaiser Permanente who spent the entire trip avoiding his family and she was a perky, liberal teacher who kept talking about socializing children rather than holding them accountable via testing. Enough to make your skin crawl. Our last night in our room-- if there was only a way to take it with us throughout China.

Yangtze River Cruise Day 3

Another early departure- 7:00 for the trip to the Three Lesser Gorges. This trip, up and down the Daning River, was aboard a motorized sampan.

The river is very wild- with rapids and it was a tough haul for the boat to make it upstream. The trip, 20 miles, took 3 hours up and 2 hours down. The scenery was spectacular- being in a small boat looking up at huge peaks. We got to see some of the famous hanging coffins and a few monkeys. We also got to get a good view of the original cuts in the rocks made for the ‘trackers”- the men who pulled the boats by hand through the canyons. They cut holes into the rock and set up planks of wood with minimal supports and these men, tied together would manually pull the boats up river. If one fell, the rest of the crew had to be ready to quickly cut him from the group and let him fall into the river.

In the afternoon, we passed through the last of the Three Gorges, Qutang Gorge, the shortest (5 miles), but the wildest. The river narrows to 300 feet and traffic is only one way.
Dinner was with our self-selected group- Herb, Sandy, Don and Ann…

Yangtze River Cruise Day 2

At 7:30 we disembarked for a tour of the Three Gorges dam site. It was fascinating to see this huge project up close.
We were either on cruising speed or something was amiss in our system- we slept off and on most of the afternoon – waking up when the boat came to the first of the three gorges, the Xiling Gorge.

The mountains rise forming a huge wall on both sides, pinching and speeding the river flow. Xiling is the largest of the three at 47 miles and is also known as the most dangerous, filled with rapids and whirlpools. To make the gorge safer to navigate, more than a hundred shoals and reefs were dynamited and it’s now lined with navigational buoys with all-weather beacons. They look like small dinghies and have to be relocated every few weeks since the channel changes so rapidly as the water rises and falls and silt is carried from bank to bank (the river is the color of caramel due to the heavy concentration of silt.).
A few hours later and we passed through Wu Gorge (Witches Gorge), 45 km.
We had a wine, cheese and fruit party in our room for dinner and crashed early.

Yangtze River Cruise Day 1

Our Boat

Our first day and we skipped the shore excursion, opting for a relaxing morning in our cabin. We got to go through the Gezhouba dam, China’s largest dam to date, completed in 1986. This dam has raised the level of the Yangtze some 65 feet behind its walls. It also gave us a chance to see the Three Gorges Dam and see the status of the project, looking up from our deck as we passed through the bypass system.

What a spectacular project. It is located at Sandouping Village, 27 miles above the Gezhouba Dam and will raise the Yangtze yet again. More than 20,000 workers and 3000 engineers are on site and the shore is teeming with heavy construction. The dam will be 6,600 feet (1.23 miles) wide and 607 feet high. They are estimating completion for 2015 at a cost of over $30 billion. It will create a barrier 370 miles long, transforming the wild waters of the Yangtze into a calm lake. It will also submerge 13 cities, 140 towns, 1352 villages, 657 factories and 75,000 acres of cultivated land- and the relocation of 1.3 million people. The project was first conceived back in 1919 by Sun Yat-sen and Mao himself supported the project. The project is supposed to generate 15% of China’s total electricity needs, reduce the flooding problems of the past and ease traffic to and from Chongqing for larger boats.
We had a lecture in the afternoon about the Yangtze River. Within the last two weeks (flood season), 4 barges capsized and 20 people drowned.

The river itself is wild- and very difficult to navigate. There is a school specifically created to train pilots for navigation on the Yangtze. It’s the third longest river in the world (after the Nile and the Amazon) and has 4 major tributaries (700 total). It carries 600million tons of silt to the East China Sea annually.
We had a Captain’s Champagne Reception and then dinner. We ended up at a table with Herb and Sandy and Don and Anne. Herb was absolutely hysterical. Don was a dance instructor from New Jersey- your stereotypical Italian stallion- huge gold rings and thick gold bracelets and a huge necklace laced with diamonds proclaiming, “Born to Dance”. It turned out that they were the most fun group on the ship. Both couples had traveled extensively and were hilarious. We skipped the Fashion Show and headed for our cabin for a good nights rest.

Wuhan - The Start of the Yangtze River Cruise

John got a haircut this morning- they did a better job than in the States.

Most of our day was spent trying to sort out our cruise- where and when- the basic details. We finally tracked down the agent in the 5 star Oriental Hotel and found that the boat would only have 12 people on it- but that we were going to have to bus to the boat because of high waters.
We hung around the Oriental Hotel all day, waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. When they finally got to the hotel, it was pouring rain and we headed out for our 4-hour hair-raising bus drive to Yichang, the upriver gateway to the Three Gorges. . The driver, supposedly the best Chinese driver they had, must have learned his driving skills in Wuhan. The drivers in Wuhan play a game of dodge-em car and chicken; passengers and other cars beware. We finally made it to the boat and through the luck of the draw, we got the Shangrila Suite- one of two of the luxury suites on the boat.

Our suite:

It had a full bedroom and bathroom with Jacuzzi tub and a sitting room with an entire wall of windows looking out the front of the boat- and a private deck.. We could sit in air-conditioned comfort and watch the entire panorama unfold before our eyes. Not to mention, the 12 of us had a staff of 110 people to serve us.

Beijing to Wuhan

One final shopping expedition in Beijing- this time for a large suitcase to hold all of our treasures. We sent back 3 roller bags filled with books and stuff with M&C. It was nice to be back on our own again. We headed to the airport and got on our China Southern Airlines flight to Wuhan. The landing was a bit rough- a pancake flat, side-ways landing. With a bit of group negotiation, we grabbed a cab to our hotel and found a wonderful English speaking assistant manager who guided us though the check in and directed us to the closest McDonalds. After 2 weeks of mutton, we really needed a BigMac fix. The McD’s was packed with Chinese, mostly under 30 or families with children, chowing down on spicy chicken wings. The line outside for the McD’s soft serve was amazingly long.
After a Big Mac meal, it was time to crash.

Back to Beijing

Back to Beijing. Our MIAT flight was uneventful- although the plate of processed meat with tongue was pretty unappetizing.
We did a quick repack to get a sense of the size of our acquisitions over the last month and headed to our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner. What a wonderful feeling to be back in the A/C comfort of the Capital Hotel

Kharkhorin to Ulaan Bataar

Time for goodbyes to all the staff at the ger camp and the long ride back to UB. The trip went much smoother this time- the girls played cards and games while we read and somehow the time went a lot faster.

We got back to UB for a quick last minute shopping expedition to the State store and a few bottles of wine for our evening at the ger. Our last night was at the Genghis Khaan ger- site of the movie set for the movie on Genghis Khaan’s life.

The setting was beautiful- in a national park, with cows and horses milling around. We watched the sunset and had dinner. After dinner, we got to see the full eclipse of the moon and listen to a huge group of Mongolians partying in the restaurant.

Kharkhorin - A day on the steppe

A bit more relaxing day. John and the group headed off for a bit of horseback riding while I finished up the journal…quiet, non-group time. They met another Mongolian family on their ride--

Then we went off for a picnic at the lake and a taste of their national food (mutton…what else). This time they prepared it a la Genghis Khaan. Genghis and his men used the body of the mutton as their pot- but they used a large pot.

They added a bit of water, some spices and onions and then layered hot rocks and meat to the top. They closed the lid (kind of a pressure cooker effect) and put it on the fire until the meat cooked. Can’t say that we’ll be eating mutton much when we get home.

We also got to stop at one of the countless ovoos and do a traditional walk around. The ovoos are a pyramid shaped collection of stones and rubbish put on top of hills- a shamanistic tradition of offerings to the gods.
Back at the ger and John and Martin took off on Russian motorcycles for an Easy Rider experience on the steppe.

Scenes from the Steppe